The Foreign Service Journal, June 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2019 79 W hen we stepped off the plane in Dulles last July, three kids in tow, we were technically com- ing “home.” After five years in Turkey and Iraq, we were returning to U.S. soil—to our parents, family, friends and our American way of life. We knew the transition would be difficult: everything would be more expensive, there would be new schools and friends for the kids, and no facilities staff to hang pictures and fix toilets. (Dear GSO: I love you and miss you terribly.) But as it turns out, those practical challenges are not the ones that have mattered most. What we have been missing, deeply, is our sense of belong- ing and community. Despite the outward appearance of fitting in here in Northern Virginia, we don’t. Our kids haven’t gone to school with the neigh- bors since age 3. We haven’t trick or treated the same streets every year. We are newcomers at soccer and basketball and Boy Scouts. And when our 8-year- old son starts talking about the devalu- ation of the Turkish lira, he gets looks of confusion. But worst of all, there is no center. There is no core. And there is no time. After school, the neighborhood kids are engaged in different activities across the city. Each little house on our street is busy in its own world. Weekends are overscheduled. And there is very little chance that I’ll bump into a neighbor at the post office, the way I often would at the embassy mailroom. Those small interactions matter. They are woven into the fabric of a relationship. They keep us tethered to those around us. In his famous work, Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Robert Put- nam makes the argument that American society has seen a drastic decrease in social capital. Instead of participating in bowling leagues, people bowl with their friends or family. This is important, he argues, because in a bowling league you build “bridging capital”—i.e., you become acquainted with people who do not necessarily think like you. Your teammates may be older, root for a different football team and hold different political or religious views. But you come to know them as people, not a representation of a single point of view. Peaceful societies, Putnam argues, depend on high levels of bridging capi- tal because it builds trust among the many disparate groups in our multicul- tural society. An embassy community builds these bridges. We work and live among fellow Americans and local staff who were raised in different communities, hold different political views and have vastly different life experiences. In each embassy in which we served, I made friends who were significantly older than me, who had faced different chal- lenges and who certainly had differ- ent political views. I came to love and respect them … and trust them. But it isn’t just about building a peaceful, trusting society. It is about how we feel about ourselves in relation to those around us. This past year I read Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness (Random House, 2017). The University of Houston professor studies topics like courage and shame; and in this book, she delves into the topic of belonging. How do we find true belonging in an age of increased polarization? Her research has shown that fighting disconnection “requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in being a part of something and in standing alone when necessary.” “But,” Brown continues, “in a culture that’s rife with perfectionism and pleas- ing, and with the erosion of civility, it’s Jessica Powley Hayden, an FS spouse, is a lawyer and a writer. Her family has served in Almaty, Baku, Ankara and Washington, D.C. They are currently “back home” in Falls Church, Virginia. Home Alone: Why Repatriation Is So Darn Hard BY J ESS I CA POWL EY HAYDEN FAMILY MEMBER MATTERS It isn’t just about building a peaceful, trusting society. It is about how we feel about ourselves in relation to those around us.